Xbox One Surprise: Call Of Duty: Ghosts And Battlefield 4 Runs Only On 720p

It’s a kind of bad news for Xbox One gamers. Two of the launch titles for Xbox One, Call Of Duty: Ghosts And Battlefield 4 will run only in 720p and upscaled to 1080p resolution. This is in contrast with Sony’s PS4 on which CoD: Ghosts will run on native 1080p and Battlefield 4 on 900p.

Mark Rubin of CoD franchise tweeted the following,

Hey, been on the road last couple weeks so haven’t had a chance to update, but wanted to confirm that for Xbox One we’re 1080p upscaled from 720p. And, we’re native 1080p on PS4. We optimized each console to hit 60 FPS and the game looks great on both. Still on the road, but glad to see the great reception to Extinction. Can’t wait for next week’s launch.

Yesterday, Eurogamer’s Digital Foundry reported that Battlefield 4 does not run on 1080p natively on both the consoles and often dropped below 60 fps. Even though Battlefield 4 was on 900p resolution in PS4, it lacked details.

“[T]he actual results on PS4 lack the corresponding level of crystal clarity we’d expect of such a significant resolution boost,” Thomas Morgan of Digital Foundry writes. “This should surely be a home run for Sony’s console, but what is likely to be a software-based upscale to 1080p delivers less-than-stellar returns, and for better or worse leaves the Xbox One with an often crisper looking, albeit much more aliased image.”

“What is curious is the level of ‘pop’ given to the Xbox One’s textures, where – bizarrely – artwork often seems to be more detailed than on PlayStation 4.”

What do you think of this situation? Should Microsoft be blamed for 3rd party titles running at lower resolutions?